Maybe the lighting was too low and you need a tripod, maybe you don't have the right auto-focus mode set, or maybe you just didn't press the shutter down halfway to lock your focus. The camera's Image Advice feature knows, and isn't afraid to tell you.

If you get red eye, go to "Remove Red Eyes" in the menu, and the camera scans the image, pulls the color red from the eye area, and then presents its work for your approval. It's pretty good, I must say. Speaking of approval, you not only get a quick shot reject option just after snapping a pic, but if you accidentally delete one that you liked, you can immediately "undelete" it.

The camera's third whizzy trick is shooting a five-pane panorama, and displaying it together on camera. In panoramic mode, you shoot left to right. You line up each subsequent shot with the ghostly outline of the previous shot, so that when all five are done, everything fits like a jigsaw puzzle. Preview Panorama pulls the shots together for a seamless view, but it doesn't physically stitch the image files until later. (It is an automatic process, however, provided you use the HP software.)

HP's Adaptive Lighting is the silent partner in this camera, and it works well. Picture elements often come out too light or dark, especially where sunlight plays havoc with the auto-flash sensor. If a face is too dark because of sunlight behind it, Adaptive Lighting brightens it up. Likewise, the camera knows how to mellow out the flash so that people's faces don't get whitewashed, as happens all too often in other cameras.

The camera wasn't a total home run, though. Auto focus was a little questionable at times, maybe just slower than my itchy trigger finger. The biggest problem was in low-light situations with the flash off: exposures took too long. Shots taken using a tripod would look great, but anything I shot by hand came out badly blurred. It's a trade-off, because other point-and-shoot digital cameras deliver grittier, noisier shots taken in less time, but at least you can take those cameras to parties and shoot without repeatedly blinding everyone with your flash.